Somehow I thought I’d reach this age and not be watching so much television. Of course, at the time I’d have made an observation like that, most TV sucked. It’s hard for me to watch any network television anymore. On the way out of town yesterday we passed a filthy Chevy Trailblazer, emblazoned Wayne County Medical Examiner. The driver was a fiftysomething doughball who bore no resemblance at all to David Caruso, William L. Petersen or Gary Sinise. Where’s your Hummer? Where’s your supermodel partner? In real life, sometimes a meat wagon is just a meat wagon.

I don’t know how many of you are watching “Breaking Bad,” on AMC, but you might want to give it a try. It’s imperfect, not as sure-footed as “Mad Men,” but part of the fun of discovering something pretty good is watching it become very good, and I have high hopes for “Breaking Bad.” (Just noticed something: This is the second made-for-AMC series; do they all have to have two-word, alliterative names? Maybe I can interest them in an autobiographical series based on me.)

B2 is about Walter White (MORE ALLITERATION! And the lead in “Mad Men” is DON DRAPER! I have found the key!)… OK, about Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque who’s just turned 50 and discovered he has late-stage lung cancer, the kind where the choices are die now or suffer now and die just a little later. He has a pregnant wife, a son with cerebral palsy and no money at all; in the pilot episode he’s moonlighting at a car wash, scrubbing the tires of his own students. He wants to die without telling anyone what he’s dying of, and he wants to leave his family enough of a grubstake that they have at least a fighting chance without him. The first desire is unrealistic, and once he lets his wife in on the secret, you see why he didn’t want to tell her: She becomes almost unbearably “supportive,” and she’s already the sort of Goodwife who looks good on paper, but doesn’t work so well in real life. (On his 50th birthday, she serves him bacon and eggs arranged into a 50 on his plate, but the bacon is the vegetarian kind.)

The second desire is more achievable, considering Walter has excellent chemistry skills and the down-and-outers around Albuquerque have a deep thirst for methamphetamine. He hooks up with a former student in the trade (nickname: Captain Cook) and the two commence on a comedy of errors designed to produce glass-grade crystal meth for the masses.

The comedy-of-errors stuff is what’s imperfect about the show. Hiding and disposing of dead bodies, deception of families, squeezing chemotherapy in around work and cook sessions — this we’ve seen before. But I watch the show for the stuff I haven’t seen before, or am seeing in a new way. It’s in the way Walter chafes under his unrewarding life, in his ugly house, with his idiot students and his pillow-plumping spouse. And in the depiction of Albuquerque thug life, with its Mexican gangbangers, laundromat-haunting tweakers and absurd, hip-hop patois (did you know that New Mexico city is known as “the ABQ”?). Walter’s partner, Jesse, dresses in the oversize pants and knit watch caps sported by rappers and other bad-boy style leaders, but he looks like a toddler playing dress-up in them. But Walter’s own wardrobe of Dockers and short-sleeve shirts hardly looks like something to aspire to. When the two fall out, split up and separately decide to go straight, the only job Jesse can find is dressed as a smiling dollar bill, passing out fliers on the sidewalk outside a bank. (This show has a way of demonstrating that for some people, daily life is so banal and stupid that staying stoned all day on crystal just…makes…sense.)

Walter comes clean about his cancer, submits to chemo, and in his physical misery finds himself attending the 50th birthday party of a college classmate who got a little luckier in the business world and lives like a pasha. No soy bacon for him — his birthday presents include one of Eric Clapton’s old guitars, personally signed by God. Later, the former classmate tries to give Walter a do-nothing job, as a cover to pay for his cancer treatment. There’s something about the moment when Walter seeks out Jesse after all this and greets him with a terse, “Wanna cook?” that encapsulates the whole show — the way people get left behind in life, the way being left behind means you can’t get the good cancer drugs, the way lawbreaking can make a man feel alive in a whole new way.

I hope it gets renewed. It’s taken me years to discover Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter. I don’t want to lose him just yet.

Do we have bloggage? No, we don’t. I was at a funeral all day! But feel free to post your own. It’s work work work today for me.

We’re going to keep this clean for a few days. God knows what some of the newer visitors must think of me. They came here to see us lift high the bloodstained banner, and what do they get? The C-word and that other C-word.

So let’s dial it down a little. Go smoke a bowl with Mary Ann.

There. Everyone mellowed out? Good. (And thanks, Ashley, for the tippage.)

Sounds like Spitzer may be out of a job before I can hit “publish” today. Ah, well. It was inevitable. Why am I reminded of the speech Beadie gives McNulty in “The Wire” this season, about who comes to your wake when you die? “A nice guy and good tipper” isn’t the worst epitaph in the world, but for a man with three daughters, I’d say he has some reparations to make.

Fortunately, because this is politics and the great circle of life, we didn’t even have to wait a few minutes before fresh entertainment arrived: Dr. Kevorkian says he’s running for Congress. Well, he can’t practice medicine anymore and he’s overqualified to pump gas, so I’d say this fits. He’s challenging Joe Knollenberg, known locally as “Toilet Joe” for his willingness to march into battle against the scourge of low-flow toilets. Jack Lessenberry provides the details:

Toilet Joe got his nickname from his as-yet-unpassed “Plumbing Standards Improvement Act.” That would permit our Johnnys to use more than twice as much water per flush, certainly a fine environmental idea in the parched Southwest, and one of the many reasons the League of Conservation Voters rates T.J. a perfect zero.

Dr. Death vs. Toilet Joe? Where else can you get entertainment like this at these prices?

Note: Journalistic objectivity requires me to make a couple of observations. Kevorkian’s run will likely not happen; he needs to gather signatures and has supposedly been dying of kidney disease for years now, and most people think this is, what do we say these days? “A cry for help,” yes. Also, everything I know about low-flow toilets comes from Dave Barry; apparently some people really consider them an affront. But my sister remodeled her bathroom last year and cannot say enough good things about hers, which is not only efficient but, being low-flow, refills in just a few seconds. Plumbing seems much louder in the middle of the night, and a fast-refilling potty is something you want. “But what about the multiple-flush phenomenon I’ve read about, in which a simple number two cannot be sent on its way without supplemental explosives?” She said she’s never needed it, and even if you did, 75 percent of all toilet-flushing is for number one, so you’re still saving water. Having used this very toilet myself, I have to say I was impressed. It does seem very efficient for only using a gallon and a half.

So I’m voting for Kevorkian!

Actually, I can’t vote for Kevorkian, because I don’t live in his district. My own congressman is Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of the current mayor of Detroit. He is what we reporters generally call “embattled.” (It’s one of our special-vocabulary things, like “war-torn.”) A few weeks ago, one of our commenters, JohnC, predicted Kwame would play the race card before his current troubles are through; not to take anything away from JohnC, who is a very sharp observer, but this is a little like predicting winter will be colder than summer. It came last night in his State of the City address, the race card with extreme prejudice:

“In the past 30 days, I’ve been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life,” Kilpatrick said, his voice rising and his finger wagging at the suddenly electrified audience, which stood and applauded.

“In the past three days, I’ve received more death threats than I have in my entire administration,” he continued. “I’ve heard these words, but I’ve never heard people say them about my wife and children. I have to say this, because it’s very personal to me.”

And then, in a swipe at the media, he said, “I don’t believe that a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children. This unethical, illegal lynch-mob mentality has to stop.”

Well-played, sir! The N-word and a lynch mob in one fell swoop! Let’s see how it goes. Every week it gets worse for him, but never, ever count out a crook in Detroit. In many ways, the city hasn’t found its bottom yet.

OK. Second cup of coffee and extra sleep is now fully operational, and it’s time to get to work. No bloggage today…no, wait. Ken Levine is back on the job, taking apart “American Idol” for the amusement of parents across this great land of ours, trapped on our couches watching this crap with the kids:

Amanda Overmyer wailed on “You Can’t Do That”, a song referring to her black and white striped slacks.

Of course she’s the one from Indiana. Figures.

Have a great afternoon. I’m off to write queries.

I’m sorry I’m starting late today. I got a glimpse of Javier Bardem at the SAG awards last night and it rattled me so thoroughly I’m just now regaining my senses. He gives me tingles in places I didn’t know I had places. Mercy.

So since I’m tardy off the mark, having spent the morning doing my Wireblogging, why don’t we just make this a quickie linkfest until I pull myself together?

Go on over to Detroitblog and check out the pictures with this post, particularly the second one, with the pheasants. When people suggest the city might try farming some of the vacant lots, I think they’re on to something. I really do. It would be a new kind of farming, to be sure, but the human race is not a static one.

I don’t know why I love the British tabs so much. Maybe because of prose like this:

We reveal the astonishing scary truth about Spice Girl Mel B’s “great love affair” with Eddie Murphy …they only had sex THREE times. But incredibly that was enough to get her pregnant, crash their three-month fling and spark one of Hollywood’s biggest legal bust-ups.

Incredibly! Maybe it’s a Brit thing. After all, Mick Jagger was the one who sang, “Some girls give me children / I only made love to her once!”

I need some beet salad, a workout and a dog walk. Back later.

Basset calls this blast from the (snowy) past “Pinto in the Snow,” but I don’t think it is. Looks more like a Ford Country Squire without the wood trim, which would then make it a Country Sedan (I think). My friend Paul had one — aka the Party Wagon — and I’d recognize it anywhere.

But the model isn’t the point of this picture, of course. This is weather journalism, dammit! Basset writes: “right in the middle of a state highway somewhere up north… right after the giant snowblower went through.” Northern Michigan, of course. Where else would people drive Ford station wagons in weather like this?

* The headline of this post is an inside joke. Ha ha ha.

Just a reminder: Wireblogging continues over at The New Package. Discuss the lost race of statuesque blondes, if you go that way.

One of the things that interests me about the internet is its community-building potential. Overwhelmingly, this is a good thing, at least for me — I’ve “met” people online that I’ve later met in person, widened my correspondence considerably and generally find life far more interesting with e-mail than without it. It goes without saying that if you’re a parent of a child with a rare disease, or a dog-fur knitter, or a body-modification enthusiast living in a small Indiana town, you no longer need to feel you’re the only one in the world carrying your burden. Surely there’s a Usenet group for you, or a blog, or whatever.

No matter how small the pond, the internet supplies a map.

One of the more interesting/amusing communities to start talking amongst themselves has been the…well, I’m not sure what they call themselves. New Urbanists, Crunchy Conservatives, New Traditionalists, who the hell knows? I don’t think they do, either. The face they present to the world is of politically conservative Christians who reject the go-go market forces beloved by the rest of their confederates, and in some lifestyle matters verge dangerously close to filthy-hippiedom. Rod Dreher, the self-designated crunchy con, is probably the archetype. He eats organic vegetables (and can go on at great, boring length about it), lives in a Craftsman bungalow, likes urban neighborhoods over suburbs, etc.

Here’s a prototypical post from a Fort Wayne blog called The Good City. The author grew up in the Fort, moved away to New York City, married and had a few kids, and decided to come back to a place where a family of five didn’t have to share 700 square feet. It starts like this:

Tonight I’m sitting out on the front porch of our 100-year old rental house in a paleo-urbanistic neighborhood, and I’m quite enjoying myself. The porch light is on, my pipe is lighted, my legs are propped up on the balustrade, and a slight chill is in the air. Though dark outside, the old-fashioned street lamps allow me to see clearly up and down the street and notice the wonderful rhythm of other houses with similar front porches. Quickly, however, the charming atmosphere so much promoted by New Urbanists begins to fade as I notice that I’m the only one actually outside on my front porch. Well, you say, maybe it’s because this is the coldest night so far this fall. Not true, however. This has pretty much been the same as every other night: for all practical purposes, no one is ever out on their front porch!

Where are they?! Don’t these people know this man returned from NYC to sit on this porch? Why aren’t they populating his fantasy of front-porch America?

Well, it didn’t take me more than a couple times walking up and down the block to realize the problem: instead of sitting out on the front porch, everyone is inside watching TV!

How dare they.

This makes me chuckle because I’m mostly in agreement with him — I, too, love old houses and front porches and wish others did, too, so we could stop building horrible subdivisions and the like. And I’ve written about it. I guess I didn’t realize what a scold I must have sounded like. (Just one tip for the blogger: In Indiana, they call a balustrade a porch railing.)

But not even in my scoldiest moments could I have written something like this, by Patrick Deneen: “It’s a Destructive Life,” all about how George Bailey destroys Bedford Falls:

George Bailey hates this town. Even as a child, he wants to escape its limiting clutches, ideally to visit the distant and exotic locales vividly pictured in National Geographic. As he grows, his ambitions change in a significant direction: he craves “to build things, design new buildings, plan modern cities.” The modern city of his dreams is imagined in direct contrast to the enclosure of Bedford Falls: it is to be open, fast, glittering, kaleidoscopic. He craves “to shake off the dust of this crummy little town” to build “airfields, skyscrapers one hundred stories tall, bridges a mile long….” George represents the vision of post-war America: the ambition to alter the landscape so to accommodate modern life, to uproot nature and replace it with monuments of human accomplishment, to re-engineer life for mobility and swiftness, one unencumbered by permanence, one no longer limited to a moderate and comprehensible human scale.

You know, it occurs to me he might be kidding. But he might just as well be not. The Crunchy Cons blog, which ran at National Review Online when the book was published, swiftly descended into blanket pronouncements that anyone who moves away from the (small) town of their birth is, prima facie, a bad parent and a selfish whelp. I liked it better when we said things like, “It takes all kinds” and left it at that.

OK, some new year housekeeping notes: Along with the sexy and curvaceous Ashley Morris and four others, I’ll be participating in a group blog on season five of “The Wire,” which all fans know starts this coming Sunday. The first episode is available On Demand now, and I’ve watched it twice, but I’m not posting anything until Sunday. Very old-media of me, I know, but sometimes a little stewing time is better than nyah-nyah-I-got-here-first speed. The site’s up now, and called — what else? — The New Package.

(Not-even-a-spoiler: One of the many small jokes in this multilayered series is the background noise of the corner touts calling out their wares, the brand names of which change periodically and reflect the times we live in; in past seasons we’ve heard them pushing heroin called WMD and Pandemic. There’s a new one this year. We should start a pool on what it will be.)

Bloggage:

Hank tells us what’s in and out for 2008. You know he’s right.

No, it’s not just you: Network news sucks out loud. John Hockenberry has some thoughts.

On the second day of the New Year, I resolve to bring some order back to my chaotic office. Better get started.

A few years ago, I had to do a phone interview with two Israelis, living in Jerusalem. Because of the time difference, and the ridiculous hoop-jumping one had to do in our office to make an international call, I opted to call them from home, first thing in the morning, and expense the bill later. Two calls to Israel, 70 minutes total = $240 on my phone bill.

I should have just passed the pain along to my ungrateful employer, but the sum was so insulting I called to see if it could be negotiated. It could. For signing up retroactively for an international calling plan, and understanding that it could be cancelled in five more days, they gave me the international-plan price: $17.

I took Econ 101 AND 102, but when prices can vary that much, it makes me realize I wasn’t cut out for life in the business world (or running a hospital). Today I got another lesson: The 4-pin to 6-pin Firewire cord.

At the Apple store: $30.
At Best Buy: $40 (I should note this specimen was 17 feet long).
Via the internet, a 3-foot version: $4.

Ah, well. If you want to talk about ridiculous prices, yesterday I paid more than $4 for a sugar-free triple-shot vanilla latte at Starbucks Fourbucks. I had a caffeine-deprivation headache at the time, however, which made it more like buying aspirin. The headache went away while my stylist painted blondeness into my hair.

“If only I were a man, I could enjoy having your boobs two inches from my cheek,” I said, all at once realizing that said boobs were significantly larger than they were the last time I got my hair cut. “Why, you’re pregnant.” Six months, in fact, which means I didn’t notice last time, when she was 4.5 months along. Well, no one ever said I was a good trained observer. Besides, haircuts are the only time I can bury my nose, guilt-free, in In Style magazine; I’m not really looking around to see who’s packing a fetus under their apron.

The highlights came out well. Decrepitude is held at bay for another few weeks. I asked the stylist if she’d consider a few platinum streaks in front a good idea, and she said that not only was her answer no, “if you asked, I wouldn’t do them.” Well, excuse me. See how you feel in 20 more years when your gutters guy, the one with the freshly healed bullet wound and the Chris Farley physique, says you remind him of someone famous. Vintage Brigitte Bardot? Mid-period Susan Sarandon? Bette Midler, for cryin’ out loud?

“Carol Burnett,” he said. I wanted to dye my whole head green.

Ah, well. Enough of my mid-century angst. On to the bloggage!

“My chicken is in political exile” — only in Ann Arbor.

My birthday appears 647,751 digits into pi. How about you?

Via David Mills, three short web “prequels” for “The Wire,” a few scraps as we count the days until the best show EVAR starts its final season. He likes When Bunk Met McNulty, and it’s OK, but my heart belongs to Young Omar. Also: Young Proposition Joe.

Assholes With Guns, chapter 7 million: Seven-year-old girl shot six times trying to protect her mother.and it’s still going on. Via Roy.

To the gym. Have a swell day, all.

All your pre-season publicity for “The Wire,” in one place:

The New Yorker profile of David Simon.

An AP story on a news nugget that emerged from the profile: Next stop, New Orleans. I’m sure Ashley’s available as a technical consultant.

The “Sex and the City” movie (motto: “Like watching four episodes back-to-back”) is shooting in where-else this month, and not many days go by without one of the gossip rags or websites featuring a photo taken on-set. The good news (I guess): Nothing really changes. Carrie isn’t wearing jeans and polos, or even sweats with an Hermes-scarf-as-halter-top. But it’s a good thing this is a movie, because you’re going to need one wiiiide screen for this getup.

The other day the NYPost reported the crew was shooting the Big/Carrie wedding scenes at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which I forwarded to Amy, because if there’s anything that brightens an orthodox Catholic’s day, it’s news that the One True Church has allowed a production celebrating guilt-free, non-marital fornication to use one of its most famous North American cathedrals as a location.

But we may have to get the Pope involved, after all:

I’m thinking a papal bull condemning stylist Patricia Field is called for here. She has plainly lost her mind.

Never mind the propriety of dressing a woman on the far side of 40 in a dress last worn by the 20-year-old Princess Diana — this is a cathedral wedding, after all. Never mind the horror it makes of SJP’s bony, chicken chest. What is that thing on her head?

I told Amy it was either a Bride of Frankenstein riff or else an abstract representation of the Holy Spirit. Your guess is as good as mine.

I’ll give up my HBO when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers, but so far the cable channel’s executives have already pushed back seven or eight digits, and I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. When “The Wire” wraps next year, there had better be a new David Simon project in the pipeline, or I am so gone.

Never mind the hugely disappointing “John From Cincinnati,” which flopped in a season, but not before it took raunchy dialogue to a new level, and no, I’m not talking about f-bombs, or even the quasi-Victorian chop-chop salad of “Deadwood” profanity. I have never heard bowel movements (“dumping out”) discussed with such frequency, and I am a woman who has toilet-trained a child. It’s “Tell Me You Love Me” that I come to bury today, although I may not have the energy. This show, about the intimate travails of four different couples, takes it out of me.

Every so often you’ll hear water-cooler criticism of this or that popular entertainment, and someone will complain, “it’s just that there are no likable characters,” as though without a rooting interest, we have no reason to watch. I disagree. Is there a single character on “The Sopranos” that any person here would like to live next door to? (And don’t say Tony; for all the thrills he gives his square neighbors by his very presence, they think he’s guinea white trash. And they’re right.) Likable is what kills TV shows, as bored writers cave in to the demands of fan websites and network executives. All a good continuing character has to be is interesting. That’s the problem with “Tell Me You Love Me” — the characters are so boring they kill houseplants with their very presence.

HBO must know this. That’s why the show’s pre-premiere buzz was all about the sex, which is explicit but not plentiful enough to hold your interest, although my e-mail is funny enough: “Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was that some guy’s ball sack on HBO last night?” Yes, yes it was. For the record, there were also erect wangers and one money shot, although it was done with egg whites and prosthetics. And you know how people say porn is, ultimately, boring? This is worse. At least in porn the actors say oh yeah oh yeah do me baby that’s so hot; these folks barely even breathe hard.

But that’s the point! the four or so fans of this show are saying. The sex is bad, because the couples are having problems! No, the sex is bad because the people are horrible. Also, incredibly dull. Actual line of dialogue, during a fight between the engaged couple: “This was like in Austin, when you bought a beer and you didn’t even ask if I wanted one, and then you flirted with that girl with the long arms!” This is what you hear when your neighbors are fighting. I remember once when my nursery monitor began picking up a cordless-phone conversation somewhere in the neighborhood. I leaned close, prepared to hear news of an upcoming drug deal, or maybe some phone sex. But no: “Are you getting the oil changed today?” “I don’t care; what do you want for dinner?”

The things that make people interesting — their enthusiasms, their secret fears, their sense of humor, how they choose to spend an idle Saturday — have been stripped away. I read an interview with the show’s creator, where she said this was deliberate, that she kept taking furniture and props off the sets until they were the upscale waiting-for-Godot moonscapes they are now, so that we’d concentrate on the actors, and their issues. But this isn’t theater, and the ShakyCam photography is telling us “documentary.” So, where are the unguarded moments? Does anyone ever tell a joke, bitch about a boss, fart while cuddling on the couch, study a box score? No.

Although I will confess this: Even in these minimalist settings, I couldn’t help but notice the therapist has a Noguchi table in her office. You know what I’d like to hear? Someone say, “Is that a Noguchi table?” I read an introductory text on playwrighting where authors were advised not to write “I’m so tired” if they could write “Has anyone seen my magazine?” and let the actor say it in a tired voice. What volumes could be spoken in a lively discussion of mid-century furniture.

Meanwhile, the sex is dwindling. There was only one boning scene this week, and it was done standing up in a restaurant kitchen, and needless it say, it wasn’t the chicken being boned, but the semi-nympho twentysomething character, Jaime. On the prep table! Which no one wiped down afterward! Check your salad carefully before you tuck in. I tell you this as a friend.

What was HBO thinking? They let Matthew Weiner go to AMC, where “Mad Men” is mopping the floor with them on basic cable, with commercials. While the people who are paying $10 a month get scrotums, and Showtime subscribers have “Weeds” and “Dexter.” Where is the next “Six Feet Under?” How soon can we get another season of “Big Love” on the air? “Entourage,” my friends, is not enough.

Bloggage:

Funky Winkerbean deathwatch: Don’t fear the reaper! Or is that the phantom of the opera? UPDATE: The Comics Curmudgeon takes note of Lisa’s imminent passing, as well as that of one of Lynn Johnston’s characters. What is it, seasonal depression week in the funnies?

I haven’t written much lately about Britney Spears, because…well, “I haven’t written much about Britney Spears” just says it all, doesn’t it? It seems fashionable now to say one isn’t writing about Britney because she’s obviously a young woman in great pain, and blah blah blah, wish her well, blah blah blah rehab blah counseling blah to the blah. If I’m taking a keener interest in her this week, it’s because of this: She’s lost her kids, and she seemingly doesn’t care. The judge says turn them over by Wednesday, and she turns them over on Monday, then goes tanning, then gets a big hotel suite. Yee-haw, freedom! We all know, intellectually, there are mothers like this in the world, but it’s still sort of shocking to see one up close. I wonder if the hotel suite was a “Leaving Las Vegas” kind of deal.

Newsday’s Pulitzer prizes are sold at auction, but no one knows how they got there. Psst, whoever bought them: Melting them down in the only possible ending to this story.